Or the integrity.

An escapist or realistic way to start the day, not sure, but it doesn't matter, this morning I read poems for a while. From Poem-a-Day, starting with one by Camille T Dungy, then wandering to a culturally related poem by Toi Derricotte, enjoyed and read several of hers and thinking to understand. I get it, I do understand her poems, but I can't understand where she is in life because we're so different; a case of I can sympathize because I have a heart and a brain, but cannot empathize because I am male and white. See, there's the difference I was commenting on in a recent blogpost. 

First, in the news, I read about Walter Mondale, a good man who just died. Having voted both ways over my years, honestly can't remember whether I voted for Fritz or not, though I could figure it out by checking Mondale v when Reagan sent U S Marines to Beirut, which caused a sea change in my political views and voting. But then as priest and pastor I did strive, not for justice among all people, but for peace, to keep my political views out of sight, at least until I couldn't stand it anymore. 

Anyway - - recalling my seminary NT professor who, when asked about his own faith and Jesus'  gospel miracles, confessed to the class that he was "the ultimate skeptic" who, at his faith point in life, had decided to believe this one thing, that God this one time made an exception to everything about the workings of creation and raised Jesus from the dead - - this morning I also read Frederick Buechner's essay on The Resurrection and decided to share it here on +Time. He doesn't waffle, for him, Jesus' Resurrection is no metaphor but the real thing: from lifeless to living. It's a physical, medical, existential impossibility that only could be accomplished by One who could command יְהִ֣י yə·hî "Be" and it be so. 

St Paul said, 1 Corinthians 15:14f " ... if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied". 

Faith is a decision for confidence in what is not seen (happy are those who have not seen and have yet come to believe). So there it is, the gospel witness, is it "real" as in breaks bread, and eats a piece of broiled fish, or is it "real" as in mind and hope and spring flowers? Decide for yourself.

The Resurrection   WE CAN SAY THAT the story of the Resurrection means simply that the teachings of Jesus are immortal like the plays of Shakespeare or the music of Beethoven and that their wisdom and truth will live on forever. Or we can say that the Resurrection means that the spirit of Jesus is undying, that he himself lives on among us, the way that Socrates does, for instance, in the good that he left behind him, in the lives of all who follow his great example. Or we can say that the language in which the Gospels describe the Resurrection of Jesus is the language of poetry and that, as such, it is not to be taken literally but as pointing to a truth more profound than the literal. Very often, I think, this is the way that the Bible is written, and I would point to some of the stories about the birth of Jesus, for instance, as examples; but in the case of the Resurrection, this simply does not apply because there really is no story about the Resurrection in the New Testament. Except in the most fragmentary way, it is not described at all. There is no poetry about it. Instead, it is simply proclaimed as a fact. Christ is risen! In fact, the very existence of the New Testament itself proclaims it. Unless something very real indeed took place on that strange, confused morning, there would be no New Testament, no Church, no Christianity.      Yet we try to reduce it to poetry anyway: the coming of spring with the return of life to the dead earth, the rebirth of hope in the despairing soul. We try to suggest that these are the miracles that the Resurrection is all about, but they are not. In their way they are all miracles, but they are not this miracle, this central one to which the whole Christian faith points.      Unlike the chief priests and the Pharisees, who tried with soldiers and a great stone to make themselves as secure as they could against the terrible possibility of Christ's really rising again from the dead, we are considerably more subtle. We tend in our age to say, "Of course, it was bound to happen. Nothing could stop it." But when we are pressed to say what it was that actually did happen, what we are apt to come out with is something pretty meager: this "miracle" of truth that never dies, the "miracle" of a life so beautiful that two thousand years have left the memory of it undimmed, the "miracle" of doubt turning into faith, fear into hope. If I believed that this or something like this was all that the Resurrection meant, then I would turn in my certificate of ordination and take up some other profession. Or at least I hope that I would have the courage to.  the courage - - and the integrity. &c T+